Record Anomalous Nernst Conductivity

KD5ZXG

Gawd
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Forget cooling, not many people are going to want uranium in their home. Even pure U-238 is still a bit radioactive. Pretty harmless outside your body but not so great if it gets inside you.

This shows promise for something more interesting. Electrical power generation without the need for turbines. Yes it is a LONG way off what we can do with steam turbines, but still shows possibilities.

We've been using mechanical means to convert heat energy into mechanical energy for how long now? Your car does it, power plants, etc. Thing is it's inefficient. You're looking at a theoretical maximum of around 40% and don't expect to hit that. General rule of thumb for a car is 1/3 goes into the rad, 1/3 out the tailpipe and the final 1/3 into turning the crank. Then take out other parasitic losses such as turning the transmission and alternator. Things have gotten much better over the years but there's only so much we can do. Better thermal cycles (such as magneto hydrodynamic) can go beyond the 40% but are so complex to build they're impractical as of yet.

Converting heat directly into electricity gets around all this nonsense and would be far cheaper. A really fun one would be to use this to generate power from waste nuclear fuel. It still produces heat for thousands of years thanks to decay. Ultimate nuclear battery.

I'm just daydreaming. Something like that is far off but it's nice to see progress like this.
 

There's plenty of old stuff with radioactive material in it. Dishes, camera lenses, glow in the dark watches, and the list goes on. The little mantles you buy for the coleman camping lanterns are full of thorium.

At the same time, most of these items are a thing of the past. So would people be ok with uranium in their homes for the purpose of cooling electronics? I'm not sure to be honest. I think it'll be a tough sell though.
 
There's plenty of old stuff with radioactive material in it. Dishes, camera lenses, glow in the dark watches, and the list goes on. The little mantles you buy for the coleman camping lanterns are full of thorium.

At the same time, most of these items are a thing of the past. So would people be ok with uranium in their homes for the purpose of cooling electronics? I'm not sure to be honest. I think it'll be a tough sell though.
We used to use lantern mantles as cheap check sources for geiger counters 😁
 
RTGs etc only really work in very low energy settings where you need something to have power for an extremely long time. Like a satellite.
A little coke can will power most of them for decades(technically longer the equipment they power usually fails first).

I mean theoretically if you stabilized and encased something well enough you might be able to get a self recharging cellphone design. It wouldn't be a smart(or small) device but I can easily see an RTG(s) about the size of a C/D Cell recharging a cell phone if it was engineered explicitly for power efficiency. Maybe a chromebook.... if you didn't mind the weight. Beyond weird applications like that there really isn't much to expand their usage.
 
Well, you know, don't lick it.

Never underestimate the power of stupid

Think of it as evolution in action.
Unfortunately, the world doesn't work this way anymore. While it seems "compassionate" to save people from themselves, it removes the responsibility people once had for making sure they don't harm themselves. While that in itself is a problem IMHO, the bigger problem is that people now expect and demand that the world be sanitized for them. Humans once upon a time understood that the world was out to kill them, and the smart(er) ones treated it accordingly.
 
Unfortunately, the world doesn't work this way anymore. While it seems "compassionate" to save people from themselves, it removes the responsibility people once had for making sure they don't harm themselves. While that in itself is a problem IMHO, the bigger problem is that people now expect and demand that the world be sanitized for them. Humans once upon a time understood that the world was out to kill them, and the smart(er) ones treated it accordingly.
Agreed
 
Unfortunately, the world doesn't work this way anymore. While it seems "compassionate" to save people from themselves, it removes the responsibility people once had for making sure they don't harm themselves. While that in itself is a problem IMHO, the bigger problem is that people now expect and demand that the world be sanitized for them. Humans once upon a time understood that the world was out to kill them, and the smart(er) ones treated it accordingly.
Blame legal systems. That is effectively what causes these types of attitudes.
From the engineering world you are taught very early on to never challenge the universes ability to build a better idiot. It will win. Then it will crush you like the insect you are for fun.
Because of this there is a huge focus on ensuring liability concerns don't screw you over. If your design kills even one kid your career is dead and gone overnight.

The little stamp you get comes with some serious RTFM concerns.
 
Been to Chernobyl and Pripyat. Just dont eat dirt and its perfectly safe.

For sure, but not many understand that or would accept it. Plus you'll have idiots try to do dumb stuff like recover the old clothes the firefighters wore.

Must have been an interesting trip. I'd like to do that one day.
 
For sure, but not many understand that or would accept it. Plus you'll have idiots try to do dumb stuff like recover the old clothes the firefighters wore.

Must have been an interesting trip. I'd like to do that one day.
Here is a pic of two random people ~300 yards from the sarcophagus.

1616973152377.png
 
Ahh yes... Tin. The protector of all things.
To be fair if it was layered with some antimony and bismuth it might be functional... except your head isn't really the risky part. If the guy was wearing a tinfoil gut and ball protector... well it would be more believable.
 
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